We Go Together (Like Rama-Lama-Kama)

So for those of you who haven’t yet had the joy of checking out Ziki and Miki, as they will now forever be known, I made sure to check them out before they were sadly derailed by the Indian Express. (Terrible analogy, I know). Every Indian in the Melbourne metropolitan vicinity descended on Margaret Court Arena, and the Serbian army were sadly nowhere to be found. I inched closer and closer to the player box in the hope of hearing a bit of “Ajde, Ziki!” and “Allez, Mika!” to keep me going. Along with several disturbing Davis Cup images that had me clapping more and more furiously and anxiously nailbiting as they ended up going down to Bhupathi and Paes, together again as the Indian Express.

But all is not lost. For those of you curious about this new partnership, let me confirm. It is all sunshine and rainbows and joy.

They even mimic each other’s moves.

See?

ZiKiri

This year at the Australian Open, L and I have agreed to take a closer look at that anomaly that graces the outer courts during the second week, playing to half empty bleachers yet providing the greatest opportunity for up-close-and-personal tennis joyness. We refer, of course, to doubles play, having recently been converted to the off-court version of the Brybros and finding ourselves alongside Nenad Zimonjic at way too many matches over the last week.

Which uncovered the mixed dubs pairing of the century, which L thankfully ensured was on the gallivanting list:

Nenad and Kiri. Joyness meets joyness.

It gets better… if only this pic wasn’t so ridiculously out of focus.

 

According to our reporter, L:

“After visiting the Serbian juniors including Junior JJ, watching Tipsy and his wife plan their Melbourne Park getaway, we had lots of Serb love at Nenad Kiri. A group of 4 boys serenaded kiri and the chair ump with some very humerous songs, led the crowd in a rendition of if you all love kiri clap your hands, zikiri won bec theyre awesome..”

“Congratulated nenad on the DC bec hes the captain of our crew hes the friend for me and you kind and nice goodlooking too nenad nenad yeah nenad….”

Did I mention we love Nenad? Oh yeah, we do. His coach has also been seated next to us at every Serbian match we’ve watched in the last week. We’re already on face-recognition-bestie basis. That Serbian tennis crew. They own.

Word Of The Day: AJDE

It’s no secret to those of you familiar with us that we have a penchant for anything Eastern European, especially in tennis.

Maybe it’s Grandma’s Russian blood that has us Davay-ing left right and centre for Misha, Dima and Kolya (Marat needs no explanation, obvs) but it’s a little inexplainable what’s drawn us to Ajde left, right and centre.

The boys of Serbia have been mates of ours since way back when. LP will tell stories of Novak hugging her and handing her his towel, and I’ve already shown y’all the fabulous footage where we sang back to him the joyous Christmas songs.

Ajde became a favourite when, drunk on joy and nothing else (true story) following Rafa’s triumph at AO 09, we roamed around Melbourne Park taking what are now famously our ‘farewell’ pics on the last night we attend the AO. We pose by the Rod Laver Arena sign, we frolic around garden square, and even farewell our favourite toilets (for the record, the ones by Court 10 are totes the best).

On asking some lovely fellow spectators to photograph us, we noticed a foreign accent, and always up for making new friends at the tenny, discovered they were Serbian.

SERBIAN! Sez LP and M, eyes open wide.

Indeed, was the reply.

We of course asked for Serbian words, and were given a full rundown on the word Ajde. Apologies to those Ivanovic fans who have been familiar with the vocabulary for years on end – we were new to it, in all honesty, and fell in lurve with this delicious new vernacular.

We’ve been Ajde-ing ever since.

And never louder than during yesterday’s triumph.

Apologies to my Brooklyn neighbours who may have been bewildered at the noises coming through the thin walls. YES, YES, JUST LIKE THAT! I shrieked. AJDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Came a long, loud utterance.

Yes, babypies. We did it. Serbia are the Davis Cup champions, and LP and I, along with most of ‘my’ known Twitterverse (apologies to the lovely Lindsay), couldn’t be more rapt.

The boys were pretty happy too. Callin’ a bad bromance?

Here’s our Vik.

Despite it being a well-publicised fact that the boys planned to shave their heads if they won, Janko wasn’t so sure about it.

But the shaggy crop is gone, and instead we have lots of gorgeous baldies. Anyway, we saw him with that beanie during the match. He needs nothing framing the face, my hairdresser will agree.

Oh, and we love Nenad too, I promise. It’s easy to lose focus on the stalwarts of the team when heroics pull you through (think Janko in the semis, and all the three years of playoffs to get to this point), but while Viktor may have been riding high, we have all the other boys to thank. I’m going to put it out on a limb and say that aside from Nole pulling them through in singles rubbers, every friggin’ time, he also needs to be recognised for being there as an inspiration for the team. Nole’s success in slams was definitely something that would have taken this otherwise average team and propelled them to the top, knowing they can do it. There’s no shortage of talent there either – let’s hope Nenad’s doubles awesome teams up nicely with sad Mika Llodra, who bawled his eyes out yesterday and made even the most hardcore Serbian supporter melt for the poor Frenchies. So I will end with congratulations to them, for doing well and all, and then…

Let’s end with a word from the wise, shall we? Janko Tipsarevic, Speccie-Wearing PHD of all that is techno, speaks: